The Root of the Problem, Gaming Activities, State Election

[tcpip]

Late last week I had a bit of a toothache, my immediate prognosis being that it was one of twenty-seven plus-year amalgam fillings on its way out. No problem, I book an appointment at the dentist for a couple of week's time. By Sunday I'm discovering that generous amounts of ibuprofen, codeine and cognac is necessary to relieve the symptoms and yesterday I'm down at the local dental clinic. Turns out that a lower right molar (number 30, apparently) has suffered a crack - how is a mystery - which naturally enough became infected, and thus requiring root canal therapy. The dentistry itself wasn't much a problem, but sweet lord, the symptoms are amazingly painful; I'm downing painkillers like a kid with a sweet tooth (to use a perhaps inappropriate metaphor).

Amongst all this however I ran a session of Mouse Guard/Warhammer on Thursday night, nearing the completion of the Death on the Reik. On Saturday there was some amusing discussion for GURPS Krononauts concerning an offer for time travellers in a documentary with references the the presentation from Terry Kelly of the Victorian Skeptics on the evidence of paranormal activity at the Unitarian Church. Sunday was a session of RuneQuest Prax, which involved the summoning of a volcanic eruption (pretty awesome). Yesterday I finished a review of Dragon Age, after playing Pendragon-Britannia, where my character managed to escape the clutches of the sidhe. I intend to do a review of Pendragon over the next few days as well.

We're having a state election in Victoria, although it hasn't attracted much media attention. I've been letterboxing for Labor canidate for Kew, Kate Jackson and will volunteer throughout polling day. I'll also be making a donation towards Maxine Morand, the Labor candidate for the ultra-marginal seat of Mount Waverly due to her work on the legalising of abortion in Victoria. The Coalition, for their part, have decided to preference Labor ahead of the Greens last which means that Labor isn't fighting on two fronts and the Greens will find it difficult to pick up the inner urban seats. I'm pleased that this also means that the Greens candidate for Richmond, Kathleen Maltzahn, is unlikely to be elected. Maltzahn is apparently a supporter of the "Swedish model" of prostitution law where the service is decriminalised from the supply side, but criminalised on the demand side. Sex workers in Sweden aren't very happy with the law, for economic and safety reasons and said candidate for Richmond has apparently not shown to two local meetings on the subject in the past week.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I don't have too much of a problem with celebrity candidates; that's normal politics to pre-select someone who is already well known. What annoys me is when celebrity candidates clearly have no idea about policy and procedure and people still vote for them based on their celebrity career.

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Well, Fantino is certainly known for being a chief of police in more than one city over his career, and Commissioner of the OPP up until he made this political run. I suspect some people will vote for him just because they have heard the name and don't know who Tony Genco (main opponent) is. There's a Wikipedia article about Fantino and some of the controversies in his career.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I see... So he's an aggressive right-wing police chief with political aspirations... Honestly, if the riding is solidly Liberal as you say I can't imagine this person coming within Cooee of victory. He's not the sort that you could run in either a safe liberal or marginal seat, too controversial, too conservative. If the conservatives were smart they'd have him in an untouchable seat...